He also said that a driver who “fail[s] to observe a granny wobbling to avoid a pothole” simply “just didn’t see her”.

Griffin, who helped bankroll the Mayor’s 2008 campaign to the tune of £25,000, and donated a further £250,000 direct to the Tory party, added:

“It is time for us to say to cyclists, ‘You want to join our gang, get trained and pay up’.”

Johnson’s links to Griffin will now come under renewed scrutiny; amongst the questions he must answer, the Labour Party today said, are:

• Addison Lee has contributed £250,000 to the Conservative Party – has any of this money been allocated to his campaign to be re-elected Mayor of London?

• How many meetings have Johnson and members of his team had with Griffin over the last four years?

• In those meetings, were there any discussions about whether private hire vehicles should be allowed to use bus lanes in London?

• Griffin has said Boris Johnson would “entirely endorse what I am saying”. Last night, his campaign refused to comment on Addison Lee’s illegal and unacceptable activity. Will Johnson confirm on the record that he has made no improper agreement with Addison Lee to allow them to use the bus lanes once the election is out of the way?

As Left Foot Forward has previously blogged, the record of Johnson and the City Hall Tories on cyclists’ safety leaves much to be desired.

Tory members of the London Assembly were accused of “playing games” with cyclists’ safety today after walking out of a meeting on maintaining the 20mph speed limit on Blackfriars Bridge – making the meeting inquorate.

Labour’s John Biggs, who represents the City of London said it was “absolutely outrageous” the Tories “couldn’t even be bothered” to debate the proposals.

While this February, George Readings, following the launch of The Times’s ‘Save our Cyclists’ campaign, wrote:

Perhaps now, with the backing of a major national paper, TFL and local authorities will start to listen. If they don’t, cyclists will continue to pay with their lives.

belgravedave

Labour could really run with this story (all the cycling websites, blogs and fb/twitter sites have been going on about this for two days) especially with the election round the corner but as seems to be becoming the norm all we have is deafening silence. What’s going on at Labour high command at the moment?

Steve Hilditch

This story makes it all the more outrageous that Boris Johnson, at last night’s Sky hustings, answered a serious question about his decision to change traffic priorities – leading to cyclists’ deaths – by treating it as a great joke, pointing out that Ken Livingstone couldn’t even ride a bike. It got a laugh but I thought it was sick. But no media outrage at this… so far. Hopefully the Addison Lee ‘die-in’ will raise the issue. //www.facebook.com/events/392495397451954/